Unexpected Visitors
by from-girl-to-steel
Summary: The Lone Gunmen alert Mulder and Scully to a strange electrical anomaly that's happening directly over a mysterious, seemingly abandoned warehouse in South Dakota. But when the agents go to check it out, what they find is nothing like what they expected.
1. Electrical Anomalies

**Author's note: This story is set during the Warehouse 13 episode "When and Where" (2.10) and between The X-Files episodes "All Souls" and "The Pine Bluff Variant" (5.17 and 5.18), and assumes knowledge of both series up to those points.**

* * *

><p><em>3:08 a.m. EST<br>Alexandria, Virginia_

Through the fog of his (incredibly pleasant, salaciously naughty) dream, Mulder heard a faint, insistent ringing noise. With near-Herculean effort, he shook himself awake, fumbled his cell phone off the coffee table, and quickly glanced at the caller id before answering. He hoisted himself up until he was in a position that could have generously been described as sitting, and muttered blearily into the phone, "Frohike? It's three o'clock in the morning. What do you want?"

"Mulder, we're sorry, but we have something we need you to look at," Frohike said before he paused, not quite sure how to describe _what_ the Gunmen had picked up while surfing their satellite feeds and exactly _why_ they were waking Mulder up at three am.

Luckily for Frohike, Langly quickly interjected. "Yeah, there's some weeeiiird electrical energy bleeping in and out in the middle-of-nowhere South Dakota. It's packing some serious punch, man."

"Mulder, whatever is causing this electrical disturbance is _huge_. We have no way of knowing what's causing it, but whatever it is, it seems to be located inside a giant abandoned warehouse. This warehouse is located at K39ZZZ on the North American Grid, in the middle of South Dakota, but we can't find any records of it ever existing. And trust me, we've looked _everywhere_."

Byers gave Mulder a few seconds to absorb what he had said, and when he didn't respond, Byers continued.

"Mulder? This isn't your average hum from a power plant. This is coming in short, random, and extremely powerful bursts. We've been monitoring it for about fifteen hours. The first surge was at 9:15am Mountain Standard Time, and they've been coming pretty steadily since then. A few hours ago the readings were off the charts, but the pulses seem to have normalized for the time being."

"Something super gnarly is going on out there, Mulder, and I don't think this is a job for your friendly South Dakota power company," Langly cracked, trying to add a little levity and hoping Mulder didn't kill them for waking him.

Mulder had finally woken up enough to process what the Lone Gunmen were telling him, and his mind began to rifle through previous X-Files, trying to come up with possible causes for what the Gunmen were telling him. He didn't find much.

"Have there been any reported UFO sightings in the area?" he asked hopefully, if a bit groggily.

"None that we've found," Byers supplied, as he, Langly, and Frohike breathed a collective sigh of relief. They'd only woken Mulder up this early a few times before, and each time they'd known more about what was going on than they could even begin to _guess_ about this situation in South Dakota.

"We've checked all the databases, both local and national, but not many people live out there. The closest town to this old warehouse is Univille, and there hasn't been a single reported UFO sighting there since the fifties," Byers finished. In situations like this it was better to let Byers do most of the talking. Frohike had a habit of mumbling, and Langly tended to ramble, both things that were not too wise when dealing with a prematurely awoken Agent Mulder.

Mulder reached up, ran his hand through his hair, and blinked, trying to clear the sleep from his brain. "Alright guys. I'll be there in an hour to look at what you've got."

* * *

><p><em>9:17 a.m. MST<br>Warehouse 13  
>Near Univille, South Dakota<em>

Claudia jogged back to the H.G. Wells section where Pete and Myka were strapped into Helena's time machine. "Alright, I hooked up the machine to the main power grid," she told Helena. "That's definitely enough juice for it to run the whole day."

_I hope_, she thought grimly. She wasn't quite sure how much strain Helena's time machine would place on the Warehouse's power supply or what exactly would happen if the circuits failed.

_Artie's gonna end us in a serious way if he finds out about any of this. But it's obviously safe because Helena's used it before… right? _Quickly shaking herself from that disturbing train of thought, Claudia stepped off of the platform and over to the time machine's control module to prepare to send Myka and Pete back to 1961 to gather intel on the "Glass Girl" artifact.

"So… is there a big countdown?" Pete asked uneasily.

Helena grasped the lever that would activate the machine, looked at Pete, and simply replied, "No," before pushing it down. Myka had her eyes locked on Helena's, silently praying that the inventor would keep her safe on their journey into the past. She didn't have long to pray, or to look at Helena, however, because the platform began to hum and crackle with electricity, spinning and slowly picking up speed. Suddenly there was a blinding flash of lightening above the machine and Pete and Myka found themselves in Jack and Rebecca's bodies in 1961, in the smoky, bustling past of what would one day become Artie's office.

* * *

><p><em>5:43 a.m. EST<em>

_Georgetown, Washington, D.C._

Scully couldn't even begin to count the number of times she had been jolted awake in the middle of the night by a loud, insistent knock on her front door. Still, every time it happened she bolted up in bed with her hand half-way to the nightstand, scrabbling for her weapon, panicked that someone, or _something_, was breaking into her apartment. But every time (_almost_ every time), all she found upon standing on tiptoe to look through the peephole was Mulder's goofily excited face staring back at her expectantly. Her first thought was always, _I should really get him a key_, followed by,_ That would be a terrible idea. Then he would just barge in and scare the shit out of me before I was properly awake. Wouldn't want to accidentally shoot him._

She sighed and pulled her robe more closely around her body as she slid the chain off the door and twisted the deadbolt. It was five forty-five in the morning; she still had a good half hour of sleep left before her alarm went off, telling her she needed to stumble out of bed and drag herself into the shower to get ready for work. Hoping against hope that Mulder was at the door of her apartment for some innocent, completely benign reason, she only pulled the door open wide enough to lean against the frame while giving Mulder her best "What the fuck are you doing here?" expression.

After almost five years of being Scully's partner, Mulder should have been immune to that withering look. And he was. Almost. So he took a moment to look utterly sheepish for waking her up and then launched right in, outlining everything the Lone Gunman had told him about the mysterious electrical surges, the warehouse that didn't officially exist, and finally ending with, "I booked us two tickets out of Dulles to Rapid City Regional at seven thirty. We have to get there soon, because the Gunmen said that the electrical energy keeps escalating."

"Alright, Mulder." Scully motioned him inside, walked back into her bedroom, and began to change into a suit, calling to Mulder from beyond the closed door. "But what do you think it is? What would cause the type of electrical disturbances you're describing?" Scully asked him, puzzled. She'd worked with Mulder long enough on the X-Files that she was reasonably confident of her knowledge of paranormal phenomena, but she'd never heard Mulder mention anything similar in scale or frequency.

As she walked out of her bedroom with her overnight bag, Scully could feel Mulder's brain revving into high gear as he began to rattle off the possibilities, ticking them off on his fingers as he went. "It could be any number of things, Scully. It could be a testing site of some kind, it could be a downed UFO, it could be a sight that's overrun with ghosts, it could be a storage facility for alien technology, it could be…"

"You don't have any idea what it is, do you?" Scully's remark was more of a statement than a question.

"Well… I've never seen anything like it, no. But I have a feeling it isn't something you'd find in _Science Weekly_."

"Then let's go out to South Dakota and figure out what it is."

Mulder grinned at her and ushered her out the door of her apartment with his hand resting on the small of her back.


	2. To Univille

_11:24 p.m. MST  
>Warehouse 13<br>Near Univille, South Dakota_

Artie and Rebecca had just entered the Warehouse. "Okay," Artie said, walking over to his computer, Rebecca in tow. "The first thing we need to do is reanalyze the data—"

Suddenly, they heard a faint _whoosh_ noise as the overhead lights flickered and dimmed.

Attempting to cover for Helena, Claudia, Pete, and Myka's use of the time machine, Rebecca attempted a casual chuckle and said, "This place still does that, huh?"

Waving vaguely and making a noncommittal noise in response, Artie quickly moved over to the Warehouse's main power grid display and slid the cover up to check the fuses.

"Artie, what are you doing?" Rebecca asked nervously, hoping that he wouldn't look into the disturbance. Nothing good would come of Artie discovering what his team was up to in the H.G. Wells section.

Seeing a light out on the display and letting out a dissatisfied groan, he said, "There's a power clot in one of the secure storage sectors."

"It's probably nothing," Rebecca quickly suggested.

"Ah, I'll flush it out. Send down a micro-pulse." Artie wrapped his fingers around a lever on the side of the fuse box.

"Artie, no!" Rebecca yelled, as Artie pulled the lever down, sending a wave of electricity shooting along the wires to the H.G. Wells section.

_In the H.G. Wells section._

Myka and Pete began to twitch and shake as the headsets they were wearing sparked and hissed with electricity.

Helena rushed over to the time machine, quickly scanning the machinery to survey the damage. "The connection's holding but something's just completely burnt out the reintegration wiring!" she yelled over at Claudia, a terrified note tingeing her voice.

"Which means _what?"_ Claudia practically shouted at Helena. She and Helena begun moving frantically between checking on Pete and Myka as they sat immobile on the time machine's platform and tinkering with the time machine's control module. They'd been experiencing power troubles for the last few hours, but everything had been relatively fine until the latest, and strongest, power surge had left the time machine sparking and smoking.

Helena turned to Claudia, her face pale. "I can't bring them back."

Shocked into silence, Claudia stared back at Helena as she let the inventor's words sink in.

Helena's dark eyes shone with the same the fear Claudia felt in her stomach. "When Jack and Rebecca awaken, Pete and Myka will be lost forever."

* * *

><p><em>9:34 a.m. EST<br>Lone Gunmen Headquarters  
>Somewhere near Washington, D.C.<em>

Langly was snoring lightly in front of his computer, his chin propped precariously on his hand, when he was startled awake by a loud, insistent beeping. He glanced at the monitor and hollered hoarsely, "Hey dudes! Check this out!"

Frohike and Beyers had both been snoozing with their heads on the table in the area that they used as a makeshift kitchen. Upon hearing Langly yell at them, they both jolted awake and scrambled over their chairs on their way to his desk.

"It seems like the energy in that warehouse let out a massive pulse and then just… disappeared." Beyers remarked, fiddling with his beard.

"That's the highest voltage output we've seen yet," Frohike added.

They all looked at each other, unsure of what this meant or how it affected Mulder and Scully's investigation.

Langly picked up the phone next to him and began to dial. "We need to tell Mulder."

* * *

><p><em>8:06 a.m. MST<br>Warehouse 13  
>Near Univille, South Dakota<em>

Artie was pissed. No, Artie was beyond pissed; he was bordering on homicidal.

"What were you all _thinking_?" he ranted at them. Pete and Myka had returned to their bodies, safe and sound, a little after 7:30 that morning, after Helena and Claudia had managed to cobble together a quick fix for the time machine with minutes to spare.

They had sent Rebecca back to 1961 one last time to see Jack, per her request, with no hope of returning because of the partially damaged time machine. She had terminal cancer, and Artie thought it was the least he could do to honor the wish of a dying woman. A former Warehouse agent. But then he had ordered his team and _that woman_, as he referred to Helena, to assemble in his office to _talk_ about what had happened in the last twenty-two hours.

"Don't you understand that if you can't ask me to do something because I'll probably say no, it isn't a good idea in the first place?" Artie paced the floor in front of them, trying to count to ten and breathe deeply to control his rising anger. Dr. Calder had told him to take it easy last time he had seen her; she had been worried about his blood pressure.

"But Artie, we found the Glass Girl artifact! We know what really happened to those poor women. And we know that Jonah Raitt was innocent!" Pete insisted, trying to get his boss to see the positive side of their little adventure to 1961.

"Well, that's great, but let's see. You could've severely damaged the Warehouse's power grid, you could have changed the timeline so drastically none of you would've ever been born, or you could've _died_! You were lucky that none of that happened this time, but what about next time?" He shook his head and sat down in his office chair, suddenly deflated. They all looked so tired and pitiful after being up for more than twenty-four hours trying to find the artifact that Rebecca had brought to their attention.

"You're my agents and it's my duty to protect you," he said, his voice sounding a bit strangled.

After pausing for a few seconds to clean his glasses, he snapped out of his sudden and short-lived melancholy over the thought of losing one of them. Quickly regaining his steam, he spat out, "I can't do that if you don't talk to me before making irrational decisions!"

Turning his head slightly, Artie suddenly remembered Helena when he spied her out of the corner of his eye. During his tirade she had been standing off to the side, trying to look inconspicuous while Artie yelled. She was technically part of the team, but she knew that Artie would have some choice things to say reserved especially for her.

"And you!" He pointed his finger at Helena. She straightened her posture in an attempt to convey that she would not be cowed by one Artie Nielsen. "You are a lying, deceitful, manipulative woman who should never have been allowed back into the Warehouse unless you were encased in bronze!"

"Artie, may I respectfully remind you that if you had not pulsed the electrical system, nothing would have gone wrong with my time machine?" she said simply. Helena stood her ground. She understood that Artie hadn't yet forgiven her for killing McPherson, but the way he treated her was simply unacceptable; she had the full support of the Regents in her reinstatement as an agent of the Warehouse.

"That is not the _point_, H.G.! How was I supposed to know what was going on when none of you told me? Pete and Myka could've died! And then I would be stuck with _you_ as my only agent!" Artie turned his back on Helena to address Pete, Myka, and Claudia. He sighed, and ran his fingers through his mop of unruly greying hair.

"Please, please, _please_ promise me that you will bring all artifact-related issues to me _before_ doing anything this drastic in the future?" His inflection implied a question, but everyone knew that what Artie was saying was most definitely an order.

Myka mumbled, "Yes, sir," and Pete nodded as he stared at the floor.

Claudia, in an attempt to soften Artie's terrible mood, snapped to attention and barked, "Aye, aye, Captain!" with a quick salute and a little grin, which only earned her a sideways glare from Artie.

"Claudia, this is not a joke. Now go back to Leena's and get some food and some sleep, because tomorrow all of you will be very busy doing inventory. And don't let _that woman_out of your sight!"

Helena rolled her eyes at the back of Artie's head and bit back a scoff. While the impulse to treat Artie to a caustic reply was almost too overwhelming for her to ignore, Helena knew that she mustn't provoke the senior agent when he was quite so volatile. So, fighting the urge to snap at him, she kept her mouth firmly closed and followed the rest of the exhausted agents out of the Warehouse.

* * *

><p><em>1:32 p.m. MST<br>Rapid City Regional Airport  
>Rapid City, South Dakota<em>

As soon as they had landed in Rapid City and the fasten seatbelt sign had blinked off, Mulder switched his cell phone back on and saw that he had seven missed calls from the Lone Gunmen.

"Hold on, Scully, the Gunmen called. I bet they have more info for us on that warehouse. I'm gonna call and see what's up," Mulder said, holding the phone up to his ear as it began to ring.

Scully hummed her acknowledgement as she struggled with the overhead compartment. She really was a little too short to grab their carry-ons from the bin, so she stepped onto the seat's armrest, hoisting herself up with her hand on the edge of the compartment. Grabbing the handles of her small satchel and Mulder's slightly larger duffle bag in her free hand, she swung them out of the compartment and into the aisle, accidentally hitting Mulder in the back of the head as she did so.

"Jeeze, Scully, watch where you're swingin' those things!" Mulder rubbed the back of his head.

"Maybe if you had helped me with our bags I wouldn't have accidentally hit you, Mulder," Scully said, not bothering to apologize.

"Yeah, Langly, I'm fine." Mulder said, turning away from his grouchy partner. "Scully just whacked me with our carry-ons. We're getting off the plane now." He paused, ignoring Scully and listening intently to Langly on the other end of the line as they began to slowly move up the aisle toward the front of the plane.

"Uh, I'm guessing that's a lot of volts?" Mulder whistled a low, quick note, apparently in surprised awe at what Langly had just told him. "And now the signal is just gone? And you didn't find records on that warehouse. Okay. Call me back if you find anything else. Thanks, guys." Mulder hung up and shook his head as they walked through the hallway that connected the plane and the gate.

Scully was lagging slightly behind him, laden with both their bags and struggling to keep up with Mulder's quick, long-legged strides.

"Um, Mulder? Mind giving me a little help here?"

Mulder turned around and spied his partner with his duffle awkwardly slung over one shoulder and her own bag clutched precariously under the other arm.

He grinned and reached for his bag. "That's what you get for hitting me in the head with it."

"Shut up, Mulder. What did the Gunmen say?" she asked, following him as he resumed walking. She really was curious; they'd never seen anything quite like this, and although she knew that the phenomena most likely had an entirely rational scientific explanation, she was intrigued nonetheless.

"Well, about six and a half hours ago, the electrical signal spiked sky high and then just disappeared. They've been monitoring the site since then, but all anomalous activity seems to have completely stopped."

"And that means, what, exactly?"

"I guess we'll find out when we get to Univille, Scully."


	3. Rest and Arrival

"Well, I certainly didn't think we'd be visiting the Dallas airport again so soon," Scully mused as they walked out of Rapid City Regional towards the rental car lot. She secretly hated when they had to fly; she much preferred cases within driving distance of D.C. She'd take being stuck two feet from Mulder in a car for twelve hours over being stuck on a plane in seats that were less than three feet wide between Mulder and a smelly stranger for eight hours any day.

"Yeah, and I can't believe there weren't any direct flights from D.C. to Rapid City." Mulder supposed he shouldn't really be surprised. After all, how many people wanted to travel to South Dakota? The trip, including the stop in Dallas, had taken them eight hours, and owing to the time difference they had touched down in Rapid City at 1:30 p.m., Mountain Standard Time.

"So, what's the game plan, Mulder?" Scully asked as she climbed into the passenger seat of their rented sedan. "There aren't any bodies for me to autopsy, we have no physical evidence except for the satellite readings and images, and according to Frohike, the local authorities haven't reported anything out of the ordinary in the area." She pulled the map of western South Dakota that they had bought at the rental car counter out of her pocket and flipped it open, trying to locate the tiny town of Univille.

Sliding his seat back to accommodate his long legs, Mulder shrugged. "I guess we should go talk to the good people of Univille. This mysterious warehouse is only seven miles outside city limits, and you know how small town folks like to talk. I bet they have some idea of what's been going on down there. Once we've got a better handle on what it is we might be dealing with, we'll go out to the warehouse and check it out." He adjusted the rearview mirror and then turned the key in the ignition, the engine roaring to life after a few sputters.

Scully had finally located their destination on her map after scanning it for a few minutes. _Jesus, Univille really is tiny_, she thought with a sigh. She wished that they could take a case in a bigger city, for once. Maybe somewhere with more than one motel and a decent Italian place, even… A girl could dream, she supposed.

"Alright, Mulder, you want to get on I-90 eastbound towards Sioux Falls…"

* * *

><p><em>2:45 p.m.<br>Leena's Bed and Breakfast  
>Univille, South Dakota<em>

Pete, Claudia, Helena, and Myka had gotten back to Leena's around 8:30 that morning, all of them exhausted and starving. Artie stayed behind at the Warehouse, assumedly to make sure they hadn't ripped a hole in the space/time continuum or something with their little trip to the past.

Leena whipped up a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast that they all gobbled down eagerly, after which they'd all gone back to their individual rooms for much-needed naps. Pete woke up around twelve and knocked on Claudia's door.

"Hey Claud, wake up!" He knew she probably wouldn't take kindly to being woken up after only three hours of sleep, but he had the perfect way to ease her ire and coax her from her slumber. Video games.

"Ugh, Pete, what do you want?" came her blurry reply through the door.

"Come downstairs and play Left4Dead with me! I wanna kill some zombies!" Pete called through the door. He figured if Artie had inadvertently given them the day off, there was no better way to spend it than shooting zombies and running for his life. Virtually, of course.

Throwing back her comforter, Claudia swung her legs over the side of the bed and stretched, barely stifling a yawn.

"Alright, just gimme a couple minutes and I'll be down." She figured getting up now to play video games with Pete was better than sleeping all day and then being wide awake at 2 a.m.

Around two-thirty Myka headed down stairs, her hair still mussed from her pillows. She had been woken up by shouts of "Don't startle the Witch!" and "Smoker! Get him! Kill the bastard!" and blasts of automatic gunfire. While the gunfire from the television had startled her a bit, she relaxed as soon as she realized it was Pete and Claudia's video game and not an actual firefight going on downstairs.

"Hey, guys. Has Artie come back from the Warehouse yet?" Myka asked, standing in the living room, surveying the scene before her. Pete and Claudia were sitting on the edge of the couch, leaning forward with their elbows on their knees and Xbox controllers in their hands. She looked at the screen and shuddered. She really hated zombies, and the creepy music and dark, often eerily empty scenery of the game didn't help.

"Ah… no, he, um, he called a little while ago… said he was working on fixing the… power grid, or something…" Pete trailed off as he killed a huge, disgusting looking zombie that was making gross squishing noises from 50 yards with a head shot from his sniper rifle. It exploded in a shower of blood.

"Aw, dude, that was frakkin' _awesome_!" Claud dropped her controller and turned to Pete to give him a high five.

Myka rolled her eyes. She walked into the dining room and found Leena sitting at the table, engrossed in a book.

"Hey, Leena. Have you seen Helena? Is she still sleeping?" Myka asked. She sat down in the chair across from Leena, put her elbows on the table, and began fiddling with a pen that had been left carelessly behind.

Lifting her head from her book with a kind look in her eyes, Leena answered, "She came down a few hours ago and made herself a cup of tea. She must've taken it back up to her room. I don't think she was able to fall asleep this morning."

"Oh… okay. Thanks." Myka got up from the table, unconsciously sticking the pen she was still holding behind her ear. She paused and stood in front of the table for a few seconds.

"Do you… do you think she'd like another cup of tea? Hers is probably cold, if she hasn't finished it already."

Leena smiled to herself, and Myka would've caught the expression, but she was looking in the direction of the kitchen, apparently trying to decide if she would dare try her hand at making a cup of tea that could live up to H.G. Wells' delicate palate.

"I'm sure she'd appreciate that, Myka. Do you want me to make it? I know how to fix it the way she likes it," Leena offered with a smile, setting down her book and walking over to the stove.

"Um, yeah, that would be great. Thanks," Myka responded. Feeling suddenly nervous about bringing Helena a cup of tea, and absolutely _stupid_ for feeling nervous about bringing Helena a cup of _tea_, Myka flopped back down in her chair to wait for the water Leena had put on the stove to boil.

She grabbed the pen she'd stuck behind her ear and started playing with it again, taking the cap on and off, on and off, and then spinning the pen between her fingers. She tried to puzzle out why she was feeling so jumpy around the dark haired inventor lately, but came up with nothing besides a lingering sense of hero-worship. And even that must've faded by now, so she really wasn't left with any other reason she could think of.

Myka was so lost in her own thoughts that it took her a few seconds to notice when Leena walked back over to her carrying a little tray with the cup of tea and a few scones.

Handing a somewhat startled Myka the tray, Leena arched her eyebrow and smirked a little.

"You should be careful, Myka," Leena warned her. "H.G. seems like a good guy, but her aura is cloudy. I can't get a good read on her. Just… watch yourself, okay?"

Myka stood up and nodded. She gave Leena a small smile as she turned away from the contemplative look on Leena's face and headed towards the stairs. She mounted them slowly, balancing the tray carefully in order not to spill any of Helena's tea. Everything smelled and looked delicious, thanks to the proprietress of the B&B. Myka hoped that Helena didn't ask how she'd learned to make tea this way; she didn't want her to think she went through the extra trouble of asking Leena to fix it for her.

When she got to Helena's door, she had to precariously balance the tray on her left hand to free her right in order to knock. As soon as she raised her fist to the door, however, the tray wobbled slightly and one of the scones slid off the side of its plate and fell to the floor.

"Ah, shit!" Myka cursed.

"Myka? Is that you? What's the matter?" Helena called from inside her room. When she didn't hear a response, Helena got up from her desk, walked to the door, and swung it open.

"Myka?" When she didn't spot the agent right in front of her door, she glanced to her left, and then to her right, where she glimpsed Myka's lithe form squatting on the floor around the corner from Helena's room. She appeared to be picking something up from off the floor and trying to brush it off, all while balancing a tray in one hand.

"…Myka?" Helena asked again, louder this time, as she walked out of her room towards the other woman.

Myka jumped at hearing Helena call her name, falling backwards and tipping the tea and scones-laden tray over into her lap.

"Ow! Shit! Damnit!" Myka yelled, crawling around on the floor, scrambling to right the tray and pick up the scones and teacup and clean herself up before Helena saw what a mess she was.

"Oh, dear, Myka, let me help you with that!" Helena exclaimed after she saw the spill she had caused by startling the younger agent.

"Oh, no, Helena, it's fine, I was just… uh, bringing you a cup of tea, and I kind of got a little clumsy…" Myka stuttered, righting the teacup on the tray.

Helena knelt down next to Myka and began picking up crumbs off the carpet and dropping them into the now empty teacup.

"Let me help, please. It's the least I can do, considering you're only in this mess because you were sweet enough to bring me a cup of tea. Therefore, I insist." Helena's hair swung down over her face

"Don't be ridiculous," Myka practically scoffed. "I just thought, after Artie was so mean to you… and after we'd stayed up all night, that you'd maybe like some…" Myka turned her head away from Helena to hide the slight blush she knew was creeping up over her cheeks and continued to pick up the remnants of the scones off the floor.

"Oh, darling," Helena gently wrapped her fingers around Myka's wrist, stilling her cleaning and causing her to look up at the inventor through her eyelashes. "Please, don't trouble yourself on my account. I shall just have to get used to Artie, just as he will have to get used to my presence as a Warehouse agent. You needn't feel as if you must comfort me." Myka glanced down, a blush again creeping up her neck to reach her face. "But the sentiment is much appreciated, all the same," Helena smiled, then looked down, only just realizing she had been holding Myka's wrist throughout her little speech.

Helena quickly pulled her hand away, but from the mixture of confusion, hope, and embarrassment on Myka's face, it was clear that she'd noticed Helena's lingering touch. Helena stood up, then, awkwardly brushing invisible crumbs off of her pants. She leant down to pick the tray up off the floor and cleared her throat.

"Come, let's bring this mess downstairs to the kitchen, shall we?" Helena turned and began to walk towards the staircase, but she hesitated and turned back around when she didn't hear Myka's footsteps behind her. Myka was still crouched on the floor, looking at her wrist a bit uncertainly.

"Myka? Are you coming?" Helena asked, puzzled at why Myka was dawdling.

"What?" Myka said, shaking herself and standing up. Helena raised her eyebrow at Myka and repeated her query.

"Oh, yeah…" Myka mumbled, trailing off and stepping in front of Helena to walk down the staircase, leaving Helena to trail behind her, wondering what exactly was going on with the curly-haired woman.

* * *

><p><em>3:25 p.m.<br>Holiday Inn  
>Univille, South Dakota<em>

It had taken Mulder and Scully an hour and a half to reach their destination. The drive from the airport to Univille was only supposed to take an hour, but Mulder had, at one point, refused to listen to Scully's insistence that he turn left off of I-90 and instead turned right. When he finally conceded that Scully's map-reading had, in fact, been accurate, they had already driven 20 miles in the opposite direction, and were forced to make a U-turn across the grass median of the small, winding state road.

Instead of gloating over being right and scoffing at Mulder's stubbornness, Scully just smirked quietly to herself while she gazed out the window. Their trip had taken them through dry, open ground filled with sparse underbrush and ragged looking scrub grass, and Scully briefly wondered who would want to live in such a desolate place.

Mulder and Scully were usually content to bask in the comfortable silences that settled between them on trips like these, with Mulder occasionally peppering the quiet with random historical or paranormal facts about the towns they passed. But Scully's thoughts, lately, couldn't help but constantly turn to Emily, the daughter she had only just discovered and then just as suddenly lost. She still had the picture she had taken from the Sims' house. She had tucked it away in her overnight bag, little Emily grinning widely at the camera behind her third birthday cake, surrounded by balloons. Looking at the photo brought forth a feeling that Scully supposed was akin to being stabbed in the chest, and Emily's uncanny resemblance to her sister, Melissa, just twisted the knife in that much deeper.

She couldn't take the picture out now; her overnight bag was in the trunk, and anyway, Mulder didn't need to know she carried it with her everywhere. She hated when he looked at her with his sad brown eyes, as though she were something fragile that would shatter with a careless touch or gust of wind.

But enough of that, now; they were on a case and she needed to focus. Scully forced herself to register the scenery outside her window and realized they were nearing their destination. She resolutely flicked open the map, and prepared to direct Mulder to the next turn.

When they finally pulled into town, they stopped at what appeared to be the only gas station and Scully asked the attendant where they could stay while Mulder perused their scant selection of sunflower seeds.

As Scully had suspected, there was only one motel, an old, battered Holiday Inn that had obviously seen better days, just like all the other motels they'd ever stayed in. The attendant had also mentioned a Bed and Breakfast on the outskirts of town called Leena's, and Mulder had jumped at the idea of home cooked meals and clean sheets, but when Scully not so gently reminded him of their expense reports and the last time Skinner had found out they splurged on a nicer hotel, he reluctantly agreed to Holiday Inn. That had not been a pretty discussion. Mulder had been worried about Skinner's blood pressure.

While Scully spoke with the clerk and checked them in to their adjoining rooms, Mulder rifled through the brochure stand on the counter. _Mount Rushmore, Black Hills Caverns, Hot Springs, Mammoth Site… _

"Hey Scully, wanna go see some mammoths while we're here?" Mulder waved the brochure at her. "You know, there are theories that the mammoths were killed off by meteors containing extraterrestrial materials, which then caused the Ice Age." He looked at her, hope shining in his eyes.

Scully really hated to tell him no when he looked so excited like that. But they were here on a case, not on vacation.

"Mulder, did you forget about your mysterious warehouse already?" she asked, turning to him with her eyebrow raised.

"No, it's just-"

"Do you mean the IRS warehouse off Route 12?" the clerk interjected. He had been casually eavesdropping on their conversation.

Mulder and Scully glanced quickly at each other before turning to the clerk.

"IRS warehouse?" Scully inquired, trying to keep her tone neutral. They hadn't found any information at all regarding the huge structure situated in what was practically the middle of nowhere. No building plans, no property titles, no deeds to the land. Officially, that warehouse didn't even exist. There was no way it could be owned by the_ government_.

"Yeah, they store old tax returns and stuff in there, I guess. It seems pretty boring. The people who work there are kinda weird, though." The attendant leaned comfortably against the counter as if preparing for a long, in depth analysis of exactly why the supposed IRS employees were "weird."

Scully had been looking forward to going to their rooms to freshen up _before_ questioning the locals, but Mulder's interest had been piqued by the attendant's description and she knew the look on his face meant he was going to find out more _now._

Shifting forward to rest his elbows on the counter, Mulder asked, "What do you mean by 'weird,' exactly?"

"For one thing, they hardly ever come into town, and when they do, they usually only stop by the ice cream place on the corner of Main, or the hardware store on Sycamore. They never talk to anybody, either, 'cept when they have to. It's this old, grumpy looking guy with huge eyebrows, a tall skinny chick with crazy hair, a real buff dude who looks like he's ex-military, and a punk-looking kid who's always got a crazy new hair color. They don't exactly strike me as your typical government employees. And they all live over at Leena's." Finishing quicker than Scully had feared and Mulder had hoped, the clerk looked very pleased with his summary of the warehouse and its staff.

Mulder shot Scully a look that clearly said, _See? I told you we should've stayed at the Bed and Breakfast._

She rolled her eyes in response. "Have you ever been to this IRS warehouse?" Scully asked, turning her head back to the clerk, searching for anything that would give them any kind of clue as to what was going on out there.

"Nah, never had a reason to," the attendant said with a shrug. "Come to think of it, I don't know anybody who's been down there. Guess not too many people are interested in old taxes."

"Yeah, I guess not," Mulder remarked as lightly as he could.

"Anyway, your rooms are numbers 106 and 107, straight out the door and to your left. Hope you enjoy your stay, folks," the clerk handed them their keys. "Just press '0' on your room phone if you need anything from the office."

"Thanks buddy, will do," Mulder gave the clerk a little wave as he followed Scully out the door and to their rooms.


End file.
